


Here is Where We'll Go

by bohemeyourself



Series: The Stupid Backstory Verse [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 06:16:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bohemeyourself/pseuds/bohemeyourself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur and Eames meet for the first time in Germany. Eames knows from the start that they are going to be something like a cheesy romantic comedy, one about intercontinental criminals and dreaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here is Where We'll Go

They meet in Germany, and Eames thinks of things like fate and crossed paths. Eames is already stationed with the 1st Armored Division in Hereford when the Americans arrive. They come on top secret business, with new training techniques. The soldiers call it "dreamsharing". Contrary to popular belief (or at least what he told Mal about Eames), they meet in reality first, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries and the like. However, Eames meets the _real_ Sam Callahan in the dream, a soldier who has steady, strong hands and deadly aim, who shows up in Eames’ sniper hideout, smiling wickedly before putting a bullet between his eyes.

The thing that gets to Eames is how _young_ SSGT Callahan is. He’s only 19, bloody hell, just this side of legal and already picked out as one of his battalion’s best dreamers. Most of the men he’s worked with, including himself, are well into their twenties, this far up the ranks they’ve made the military their careers.

But God is he gorgeous. He's thin, too thin still, still shaking off the last traces of adolescence. Milk-white skin, a smattering of freckles, and dark hair that he’s let grow out since boot camp, and it curls deliciously over his ears, making him look even younger, if possible. Eames teased him about it, but when he suggested he cut it, Sam wrinkled his nose and said “You should have seen the buzz, it was worse.”

Most of the guys like to go out when they’re on leave, leave the base and go into the city and get drunk and hit on local women. But not Callahan, of course not. They’re off base, sure, but far away from any sort of place that sells alcoholic beverages. They’re watching the sun set over the city, their backs to the rough bark of a tree on top of a hill. The green, green grass of the park stretched out before them, calm and almost endless. Eames thinks it’s rather cliché, or would be, if they could actually play along like some sort of romantic comedy. Callahan is laughing at something he’s said, carefree and so young looking, sitting in the grass wearing his grey ARMY hoodie that’s a bit too big for him yet.

Eames reaches up to flick away a leaf, golden yellow in the cool air of autumn, that’s fallen from the tree and settled onto Callahan’s buzzed dark hair. As Eames pulls away, he catches Eames’ wrist with slender fingers.

Eames remembers those same slender fingers around his wrist earlier that morning. Eames had jolted awake, sweat prickling at his forehead. He could still feel all of those _hands_ , pulling at him. (They name them projections, because they’re not actual dreamers, just random people that dreamers use to populate the worlds they’re creating. They’re as real as the fruit in the supermarkets, the paintings on the walls.) Behind his eyelids is the image of Callahan and the worried look on his face as he raises a gun to Eames’ temple, ejecting him from the dream.

He shifts, and Callahan is beside him, kneeling there next to his cot and pulling the cannula from his wrist. “Hey,” he says softly. “You’re alright, Eames.”

Eames’s eyes narrow, trying to focus. “Eames!” Callahan barks again. Eames blinks, focusing on Callahan’s face.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Eames shakes his head as if to clear it. “Fine,” he grunts again. He looks down to where Callahan’s slim fingers are circling his wrist, thumb rubbing over the inside, blue veins just under the thin skin.

Callahan laces their fingers together before letting their hands drop back to the grass. The smile on his face is gone now, replaced with something raw and open, and Eames finds himself drawn in. He forces himself to look away.

“Sam,” He begins. Callahan sighs heavily. “We can’t. You know we can’t…”

“I know.”

Eames leans in, dropping his voice to something like a whisper. “If we could, you know I would, but…”

“I know.” Callahan says, more forcefully. He looks away, out into the fading light, and Eames can see the muscles in his jaw as he clenches his teeth.

Eames snakes an arm around Callahan’s shoulders, pulling him closer. Callahan relaxes, giving in and resting his head on Eames’ shoulder.

“One day,”

Eames leaves the maybe hanging in the air like a promise.

+++

  
It’s almost a year after he’s returned to London that Eames gets a phone call.

“Meet me in Paris,” Callahan says, almost an order. “I’m leaving Georgia right now.”

“Sam,” Eames begins, sensing something dark and dangerous in his voice. “What about…”

“I’ll tell you when I see you. I’m at the airport. I’ll call you again when I land.” The line goes dead and Eames sighs. He books the next ticket on the Eurostar.

Eames meets Arthur (it’s Arthur now, I can’t go by Sam anymore, at least not yet.) at the flat just outside the city. Arthur has the same wicked smile on his face that Eames had first seen, but there was something else there too, just under the surface. Eames didn’t press, not then, but let Arthur guide him in, introducing him to Dominic and Mallory Cobb, who are sitting in the kitchen with a PASIV device. The three of them introduce Eames to the kind of dreaming that the military could never handle.

Later, after Mal insisted that they take the guest room, and Eames had gone out for a six-pack of beer, Arthur finally tells him about leaving Georgia.

“I couldn’t do it anymore, Eames.” He pauses to take another swig of his beer.

“What happened?” Eames presses. He knows Arthur is holding back, choosing what to tell Eames. He lets it slide though, willing to accept what Arthur plans on telling him.

“I was just,” Arthur sighs, gaze dropping to the carpet. “done. So I took the PASIV, and I left.”

“Just like that?” Eames asks, a little stunned.

“Just like that."

+++

  
After the beer had been finished and the Cobbs were asleep in their room down the hall, Eames spreads Arthur out on the bedspread and fucks into him slowly, opening him up with his fingers and tongue, kissing all the bits of him he can reach, all the bits he’s wanted to press his lips to since they met. Eames holds Arthur’s hips steady as he sinks down onto Eames for the first time. Arthur gasps and arches over him, and when he comes Eames pulls him down and presses a hand to his mouth to stifle his moans.

And afterwards, when Arthur is curled around him and starting to drift, Eames presses a kiss to his forehead and mumbles “You should come home with me.”

Arthur doesn’t answer for a long moment, and Eames thinks that maybe he really has drifted off when he whispers “Yeah, okay.”

+++

  
That was ages, _lifetimes_  ago, before Mal gave birth to Phillipa, or James, before Eames ever sold his first forged painting, before Arthur had learned to steal information for money.

Eames ponders, as he and Arthur wander the booths at the farmer’s market, how amazing it is that the gorgeous, wickedly smart boy turned soldier had become the beautiful, polished man in front of him today. There are still traces of him left, that boy soldier. Eames recognizes it in the way Arthur laces their fingers together, tugging him along to look at the flowers in the next booth, his huge, dimpled smiles that are rarer than the most precious of gems, the way he rambles when he’s tired, or excited. Eames knows it in the way he kisses, the way he loves Eames, uncontrolled and without end.

God, they are a rom-com, as Arthur calls them. But they could be the cheesiest of all movies, and Eames wouldn’t give a flying fuck. They were home, safe and happy for the first time in a long time.

Eames watches Arthur for a moment, talking to the florist and not noticing Eames is slowly slipping away. When he knows it is safe, Eames ducks into the jewelry shop on the corner. The woman behind the counter is young and sweet. He points out of the window to where Arthur is standing at the florist’s booth.

“Do you see that man, there?” Eames asks, watching her watch Arthur.

She nods. “He looks cute, do you know him?”

“He’s my boyfriend.” Eames smiles when her face melts. Eames can hear the aww, even if she holds it in. “I love him very much, and I wanted to get him something, to show him.”

They make small talk while she shows him a series of men’s rings. He chooses one, something simple, elegant that he knows Arthur will love. He thanks the woman (Bea, Beatrice is an old woman’s name.) and finds Arthur out in the street again, picking out fruit a few booths from where Eames had left him. Arthur barely noticed he was gone, Eames is always disappearing at the market to look at this or that, falling back into step with Arthur a few moments later.

After dinner, when the flowers are sitting in a vase, and a pear tart is cooling by the window in the kitchen, when Arthur and Eames are curled together on the couch, Eames fishes the ring from his pocket and presses it into Arthur’s palm.

Arthur stares at the silver band for a few heartbeats. He looks up at Eames, eyes full of something like wonder, and Eames knows _there, right there_ is where that boy soldier is hiding.

“Sam,” Eames says, voice hoarse with emotion. “Marry me,” Eames whispers and Arthur leans forward and then they’re kissing, tears mixing on their cheeks. “Marry me, Sam, please” Eames says into his mouth and Arthur whispers back “Yes, jesus, yes.”

Eames has the pleasure of sliding the ring onto Arthur’s finger for the first time. It looks so perfect, sitting on his finger like it’s grown there out of Arthur’s own skin. Eames brings Arthur’s hand up and presses a kiss there, watching as Arthur shivers.

Eames fucks him slow and sure, this time the covers are bunched at the foot of the bed, rocking into Arthur with measured rolls of his hips. Arthur never lets Eames go this slow, this gentle. But tonight is different, and the same, all at once. Arthur still gasps and arches the same way under him, this time there’s no need to hurry, to get pick up a brutal pace and push Arthur into the mattress, unless of course he asks for it. Their bodies move together, Eames’s spine goes liquid as Arthur clenches around him, his stomach rippling as Arthur grids up against him. Arthur’s moans as he comes, they’re obscene as ever. Arthur yells out, pushing up into Eames’ hand, Eames’ name on his lips.

They eat the tart naked on the bed, and Eames keeps catching Arthur glancing at his hand, staring as if the ring is going to just fuck off and leave Arthur’s finger cold and lonely. Arthur sees Eames watching him, and he blushes. Eames smiles, his chest about to burst, and so he leans over and catches Arthur’s lips in a kiss.

“I love you,” Eames says against Arthur’s mouth, and can feel his answering smile.

“Yeah,” Arthur says softly, “Yeah, me too.


End file.
